[Today, I have a bad cold, with a sinus headache and running nose. The amount of mucous I'm producing is pretty epic. I'm trying to at least conserve mass, so I'm drinking lots of water.]
[At a pharmacy.]
Do you have Eriecedamol?
[I had called a local friend who pronounced this for me over the phone earlier]
No.
I have a cold, with a headache and running nose. Do you have anything for that?
[Goes and finds a box, and tears off a couple tablets, from the main aluminum board of pills.]
These are for cold.
[I examine them, and the box, and don't find anything except for branding information. Not even dosage recommendation.]
What do these do?
These are for cold.
No, but what do they actually do?
For cold.
[Someone else is waved over, bringing another set of pills with them. Similarly, they tear off some tablets from the big aluminum plate. I look at the box, and the tablets, and again no dosage or description of what the medicine actually does. This one warns against overdose though, and mentions possible liver damage. But I can't know what the overdose is if I don't know the dose, right?]
What does this one do?
It’s for cold.
But, is it like a decongestant, or for headache?
It’s for cold.
No, but which symptom does it treat? Decongestant?
Decongestant.
(Suspicious.)
[I leave the pharmacy without medicine, vowing instead to sleep it off.]
Mr. White
I went looking for laundry detergent, and the only one that was less than a year’s worth of washes was this one. “Mr. White”, some powdered detergent that had a…er…white guy on it. Because he knows about whitening because he’s white. I am ALSO white, so I posed with him. We had a pretty white night together.
[In Mumbai]
[We are wandering near the gate of India, and end up talking with some locals who are also traveling there.]
I am trying to become an actor or model.
[He would actually do really well, I think. He has this effortlessly good-looking and relaxed appearance, with a few days of stubble and just-woke-up hair. Most guys strive for this.]
I really like your eye colour, is it sky blue?
I don’t really know my own eye colour. Uh, I guess so.
I wear contacts that look like that sometimes. I really like it.
I swear I saw a tv program where an older police officer checked the ankle and leg region of a woman who had just fallen, for injuries. Meanwhile, about 4 of her friends stood nearby, sighing and nearly fainting. The officer’s hands were shaking nervously. Is this titillation?
[There is an expensive restaurant at a nearby mall called "Sahib Sultan" or something like that. Sahib is an old Indian word for white British person. I peeked my head in once, to see an Indian guy dressed up like a stereotypical British officer on Safari, with a full white moustache, matching khaki trousers and shirt, and a wide-brimmed safari hat. It looks as ridiculous at it sounds. To me, at least, it also comes off as kind of strange and offensive. If some foreign country occupied mine for a couple centuries, I would find it offensive to have a theme restaurant about them. Imagine having a Nazi-themed restaurant in Paris. Weird.]
[A few days later, I ask some of my friends.]
So, what do Indians think of Britain these days? What’s your relationship with theme? And what’s the deal with that restaurant in the mall?
They’re kind of a laughingstock. They’ve really declined.
They have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe.
All their best teachers and workers and scientists are Indian.
It’s pretty funny these days.
Huh, I didn’t even think of it that way.
[I'm at a open mic night, and there's about 40 people there. I'm hanging out with some Indians, and one of the guys that's running the night told me the group of 8 people near the front are American students on exchange.
Later, the Americans are speaking loudly and arguing about their bill, disrupting a guy who is playing a quieter song on stage.]
“*$&#ing Americans” I say under my breath.
The Indian-looking guy next to me turns to me and says “I know what you mean, man. I was born in the US and I know what you mean.”
[I'm going to be part of an improv performance on August 4th at Kyra (a bar) in Bangalore. It's mostly a stand-up night, but they are opening with improv.]
[We meet in advance to talk about things.]
[Its a group of 4 Indian locals, 1 Indian who was born in the US and me.]
Sweet, we can have you play some hilarious ex-pat stereotypes!
Oh, I didn’t even know those existed or what they are!
(I still don’t know yet, but I’m super-excited.)
[I find out one of my Indian friends worked for one month in Seattle before coming back.]
So, driving terrifies me here (in India). I couldn’t think of even trying to drive here. How did you find driving in the US?
It was scary, man.
What? What?!?? How is that possible? It’s chaos here! Nobody follows any road rules!
[We're actually in a traffic jam at the moment, which is why it came up.]
No, but see, in India, there are no rules, but the traffic flows, so everyone is constantly paying attention. Here, I’m used to, if I am ever lost, to stopping on the road and looking for signs or asking someone. Sometimes I might even need to back up. If you do that in America, people will honk at you. If you miss an exit on the highway, you have to drive like 20 minutes to get back to where you were. America is scary because everyone follows the rules of the road, and isn’t paying attention to anything that is actually happening.
Indian English
The lingua franca in India is English. If you can only know one language in India, this is the one to know. A common misconception if you’re from outside India is that the entire country is culturally and linguistically as one. This is incorrect! India is more culturally diverse than Europe! There are thousands of native languages in India. State lines are typically drawn between regions where the major language changes. So, imagine, in your home country, that as you move to a different state or province, the language changes, but also the script, so you can’t even read signs phonetically. Crazy! I asked some Indian friends if there is a language I should learn before coming to India and, sadly, they just told me “English”. Take two random India people from anywhere in the country, and it’s possible the only language they have in common is English, and possibly Hindi.
But despair not readers and adventurers! English here is different! I may think I speak the local language already, but there are many subtle differences in meaning I am slowly picking up on. An interesting question though: are these differences in meaning a result of a group understanding a fundamentally different meaning to the word, or is it because of some cultural difference? I actually do not think these are separable. (And the Eastern Philosopher says to me “can anything be truly separable?” and I say to shut up and stop being meta). It is, of course, incorrect to think that any use of a word here is wrong, but rather its “just different”.
Fine
When talking about a project at work and defining responsibilities, I had someone say “Fine, fine.” after we had come to an agreement. This bothered me, as in Canada at least, “fine” translates to “I agree, but I am not happy with it.” I heard several other people around my work use this word with each other, and I started wondering what kind of passive-aggressive environment I had found myself in. Finally, I asked someone to define what “Fine” meant to them, and they said it was the same as “Okay” or “Sure”. It doesn’t carry the negative connotation that I’m used to. So I have adjusted now, but initially I kept getting offended.
Come
Consider in the West, you’re having a conversation with someone, and then they say “Come” and turn and start walking away from you. I found this overly forceful, especially if I don’t know the person. Normally, I’d expect a “Could you come here?” or “Follow me please.” or “Come this way.” The extra linguistic complexity of the phrases I just suggested wouldn’t be a problem for the people I was talking to, so they aren’t just saying only “Come” for lack of vocabulary. I just kind of take offence to someone telling me to go somewhere without the requisite linguistic ceremonies. I haven’t figured this one out.
Only
The use of the word “Only” here is really strange, and I have tried to come up with a consistent definition for it. Typically in Canada, putting “only” before a phrase means “instead of more”. For example, “I only won $5!”. More generally, it implies “instead of something better”. More examples: “It only arrived just now!” “I only love you a little bit. I only wanted to be friends.” It tends to carry a negative connotation.
In Indian English, “only” also can appear at the end of a phrase. The most weird example is on pay cheques I receive, which say “Blah Blah thousand rupees only”. As if to make fun of me that I could be making more money. And this is from a bank! I’ve seen “only” on prices in shops too, which made sense because it implies that something is inexpensive. Yet, its not just on big flashy, price signs, but on small price tags, taking up valuable real estate that the bar code also has to occupy. The closest I can come to defining “only” is that it is used to cement an amount. “5 rupees” implies “about 5 rupees”, whereas “5 rupees only” means “exactly 5 rupees”. Only I’m not sure.
The Indian Head Bob
Oh man, this has been the most confusing this so far. This isn’t part of the spoken language, but since it is confusing and directly conflicts with what I’m used to, it fits in here. In the Western world, an up-and-down head movement, or “head nod” indicates a “Yes”. A side-to-side movement, specifically a rotation of the head about the vertical axis, indicates a “No”. In India, the head nod is not really used, because nothing is really certain in India, ever. Rather, the gestural expression of choice is the “India Head Bob”. This is a rotation of head about the axis pointing backwards and forwards. If you want to try it, just make the left side of your head go down, then right, then left and then repeat. This feels very different, but when you make it fast and subtle enough, as all linguistic expressions eventually become, it looks very similar to a side-to-side head shake. Yes and No look the same. I have had many conversations like this:
“So how much to go the MG Road?”
“100 rupees”
“That’s too much. How about 60 rupees?”
“60 rupees” (followed by Indian Head Bob, which looks like a Western head shake)
“60 rupees? Is that too low?”
“60 rupees” (followed by the same gesture)
“What? Yes or No?”
Fortunately, I have become used to this now, and I can tell them apart, but it still catches me some time. The India Head Bob, as I said, is still not as definitive as a “Yes” though. Rather, it’s like someone saying “Sure, sure, sure…” to agree with you as you are speaking. This was also very confusing in the beginning, as I would be talking to someone and suddenly they would look like they were shaking their head and I would stop to say “What’s wrong?”
More on the Indian Head Bob in the wikipedia article. This shit ain’t in the guide books.
Note that all of the described experiences above apply to Bangalore, and don’t necessarily apply to the rest of India. In fact, the subtle meanings of words and expressions probably do change.